Bonanza Marketplace Gets a Rush from Flash Sales

Bonanza said it had a lot of positive feedback from users who attended its first five limited-time sales, known as Bonanza Rush. The first Rush featured antiques and lasted 4 hours. Alex Berg, the company's Chief Product Officer, told AuctionBytes that over a thousand Bonanza users attended the first Rush, where they voted on several hundred items, left 1500 messages in chat, and left "lots of positive feedback (and a few bugs of course)."

Its subsequent "Baby, Toddler, and Children's Clothing" Rush outsold the Antiques Rush in terms of units sold by 2 times, and its "DVD & Movies"Rush outsold Antiques by 5 times.

Berg said they are getting to know which product categories work well in a Rush and plan to modify them over time to drive sales. Bonanza is also using low-cost usability testing services to optimize the experience.

Bonanza does not divulge specific sales numbers, "but we're pretty bullish on the feature and feedback so far," said Berg.

Sellers left their feedback about the first Bonanza Rush on discussion boards, including this thread.

The schedule of Rushes can be found on the Bonanza Rush page - next up, "Women's accessories and handbags" (today, November 11th). More information about the Rush functionality is found on this Bonanza blog post.

Updated 11/11/10

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Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.

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